If you're reading this, chances are you are nearly mortally wounded and are wondering, what the heck just happened to me?
I recently escaped - barely alive - from an 11 month on again/off again torture relationship with a BPD woman. The highs were exhilarating, the lows were devastating. I'm so glad this book exists - it helps me to know that it wasn't me who was insane, and that - because of this dreaded illness - 6% of the population will engage in the behaviors outlined below, and are utterly incapable of a stable, healthy relationship.
Reading this great mini-book, and other websites, I slowly started to glean what I had just been through. My BPD ex was alluring: attractive, meditator, actor, classically trained musician, works in a caring profession, many talents. Passionate sex. A profoundly deep mutual love that will last through many lifetimes.
And then...extreme mood swings out of nowhere. Her crying fits in public - for no reason - designed to have every stranger look at me as if I'm some kind of abusive freak. Constant low-level criticism. Nagging guilt, somehow everything was my fault.
As this book outlines, BPDs are uniquely promiscuous and prone to excoriating infidelity. Constant references to her extremely promiscuous past - I was about lover #60 for this 30-year-old (she bragged more than once about her number of lovers- what woman does that?). These utter lack of boundaries and sexual discretion including being a stripper to put herself through divinity school (I mean, who does that?!), as well as unending details about former (?) sex partners including intimate details such as STDs, orgasm patterns, circumcision, frequency of sex: unwanted and unsavory details such as the lover who repeatedly prompted her cat to defecate on her bed, etc. You will be the unwitting wikipedia of her/his sex life.
And most unusually, as outlined similarly in this book, repeated, impulsive break ups designed for maximum carnage. 6 break ups in 11 months. Each break up was completely toddler-like and impulsive. The morning of, we were happily in love. By night, the hatchet fell again, by text, email or phone. One break up had something do with folding chairs for a housewarming party.... The day of her final guillotine break-up, I expressed my displeasure at her - again - hanging out with lover #59 (see below). The final time we spoke, she declared I was the love of her life - twice - then boom by out-of-the-blue email informs me "this relationship is over" and warns me not to contact her - by phone, email, text or visit - for at least 6 months. I mean, who does that?
After each painful nut-check breakup, her texts, emails, and cyberstalking (of my Match profile) would start again within 1 week. But it was only after breakup #6 that I had bought this book and wised up. Even though she had warned me to cease any contact for 6 months, she contacted me regularly for 2 months until I blocked her cell, set up her email for silent delete, and blocked her on Facebook, Match, etc.
***Don't fall for the trick - past performance is best indicator of future behavior - he/she will do it over and over and over again until you completely lose your mind.*** What's most disconcerting is that I kept giving her second chances, over and over, I accepted her double standards, rationalizations, frequent hanging out with ex lovers, with or without me. At her birthday party, virtually the only people she invited were people (men and women) she had had sex with, who had probably been through the same soul searing torture I had endured. Who can't get other friends?
And then of course this book covers the *hallmark* of BPD: splitting (black or white thinking). Splitting is exactly what makes a BPD relationship - and the multiple break ups - so unbearable. You are perfect, you are the best lover ever, you are their romantic ideal - all of this - until the moment they decide to recognize you have a flaw... Then you go from white to black, and an endless cycle of mind-screwing break ups will begin until you are exhausted and in a bleeding heap of mangled body parts by the roadside. Meanwhile, they will have moved on in record time, and - even though you had discussed a lifetime together or marriage - they very well might be in bed with someone new the night you broke up.
In fact, my ex did exactly that - her boyfriend right before me (lover #58) was a no-show at her performance on a Sunday evening, she 'breaks up with him' without even telling him. She then tells me (lover #60) she's ready to date me - but then goes home and has a one-night stand that night with lover #59. After expressing my surprise about lover #59, she dumps him on Monday to sleep with me (for a few days) before lover #58 comes back the following Sunday. After declining her suggestion that I share her with lover #58, she dumps me to hook with him again. Within a week or two, she dumps lover #58 again to be with me. Then later during a lull in our relationship a couple months later, she sleeps with lover #59 again. Were you able to keep that straight? And that's just what I know about. That's how our relationship began, what was I thinking...?
Worst of all, through their (unknown) mind tricks and manipulations, they will get their hooks in you like you can't believe, and you can even get infected with BPD symptoms and start displaying similar abnormal behavioral. BPDs distrust the world, and you will too because you will question your sanity when you ask how you ignored the many warning signs and dated the person anyway. I am ashamed to share everything I know about her with family and friends, because they will - and already do - shake their head and ask "what was I thinking?" And that's just it - the Svengali mind tricks from the beginning that are so persuasive. And when you bring up a reasonable question like "why do you feel compelled to have sex with everyone, male/female, 20 years older or 10 years younger, including multiple lovers in one week," they will turn it around and convince you they're got it all figured out - and in fact you're messed up.
Many therapists refuse to work with BPDs, those who do often seek support groups to help endure the extreme mind-messing they will endure. It's that bad. As for dating, get the word out. You cannot fathom how close you will come to losing your mind, a romantic relationship with a BPD is the biggest mind mess and worst hell on earth.
If you're already close to someone who is BPD - by accident (family) or by choice (deep in a relationship), do the work and learn how to cope with and support them - as long as they are willing to admit their problem and get treatment. BPDs are human too, and as the author eloquently points out, they are fundamentally unhappy people and - without treatment - are simply unable to understand love or to give/receive it. So BPDs deserve compassion and help. Apparently the best - and possibly only - treatment is dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), so do your homework and help them into that.
But if you've just met someone new, and/or refuse to recognize their harmful behavior and/or aren't getting treatment, run away as fast as you can.
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